


Out on Another Night

by Quinara



Category: EastEnders
Genre: M/M, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 12:27:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6704557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quinara/pseuds/Quinara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after Friday's episode (29/04/16).  Ben flips out in the restaurant after Pam and Les take him and Paul out; Paul follows him to the Arches and they end up having a long chat about things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out on Another Night

The Arches weren’t all that far from Beale’s: you only had to head up Turpin Road. At this time of the evening, though, with everyone heading for the Tube, it seemed to take hours for Paul to work his way up past Bridge Street and round the memorial. It was too loud, all around the square, with crowds and the sun not yet set and no Ben in sight.

When he’d had disappeared out of the restaurant, Ben, it had taken a couple of moments for Paul to follow him, and now he was nowhere to be seen. He wasn’t trashing the street furniture; he wasn’t beating up the market stalls’ scaffolding… That meant he’d likely be at the Arches, but how he’d got there so quickly Paul didn’t know.

It was supposed to have been their night. Ben had plans for later, but the drinks at the house had been awkward, and by the time they got to the restaurant hostilities had been set to resume. It had all been a mistake.

 _We could have been anywhere by now,_ the panicked thoughts ran through Paul’s head. _Soho; Camden; that club down in Peckham they had a flyer for in the caff… We could’ve been living it up. Normal._

A beat-up old car came round under the railway bridge then, and Paul paused on the pavement, peering to see the driver. It wasn’t Ben – just some lads on a night out. _It’s not gonna be Ben, Paul, you idiot; he hates driving and he’s in no state to…_ The driver swerved cheerily over a pothole and a spray of water splatted onto the toes of Paul’s shoes because he wasn’t paying attention.

They shouldn’t have gone to Beale’s, full stop –not with the boycott on. But there was nowhere else that could fit them in at short notice and Ian was Ben’s brother. It hadn’t helped, though, not one bit, to have Nan disparaging Ian’s community values while Ben bit out a sermon on doing what you had to do for your family.

It was quieter round by the community centre, and actually a bit eerie closer to the Arches. The padlock was off the door, but there were no lights on inside. There should have been the sounds of crashing metal and tools being thrown onto the concrete floor; light and wreckage and noise. Comforting sounds, in their own way. At least those moods quickly vanished. 

“Ben?” Paul called out tentatively, letting himself into the garage.

* * *

_earlier._

* * *

“Ben?” Something was off. Paul reached out, but the moment he touched the arm on the table Ben flinched. It wasn’t a wild flinch, and certainly wouldn’t have been noticeable to anyone else in a yet-still busy Beale’s but Paul, but it was a flinch nonetheless. Ben looked round at him, but it was one of those times his eyes seemed to be sealing off all sorts of dark Walford memories, expressing nothing. “Ben.” Paul dropped his voice to a murmur. “You’re shaking.”

Ben’s expression turned apologetic, but he didn’t say anything before Paul’s nan came back from the toilet. It was too soon, and Paul had a sinking feeling in his stomach, as he’d had ever since they’d got onto the subject of Ben coming round while he was in the shower. “Now,” Pam said, in the conciliatory voice Paul always found himself listening to, “why don’t we put this behind us and talk about something else. The food will be here soon.”

“Right,” Ben muttered, and Paul’s stomach sank further. “And I suppose we can trust you ain’t gone and cancelled mine.”

Paul cringed as his nan reacted. Things always had to be difficult, didn’t they? “And why would you say such a thing? Les and I didn’t have to take you out tonight –“

“Birdy…” Les murmured, only for Nan to scoff.

“I don’t like people lying,” Ben interrupted, dangerously. His voice was steady and his eyes were back on the other side of the table, not meeting Pam’s while he stared in the direction of her face. He had his hands on the table, and Paul looked over him to his granddad to try and get the man to do something. It was clear he wasn’t going to. “You don’t want me seeing your grandson, be up front about it. Don’t _manipulate_ and _lie_ …”

“I didn’t _lie…_ ” Pam defended herself, and Paul searched his brain for the right words, knowing they wouldn’t come quickly enough.

After all, he knew what was coming, and come it did. Whatever switch it was in Ben’s head that got flicked when his back was against the wall, that went off, and he was on his feet, slamming his hands into the table before he reared up. “You _told_ me he was _ill_ ,” he shouted, bringing the noise of the restaurant to a sudden halt. His finger was pointing at Pam and his chin was up, though what he was seeing Paul didn’t know. “Like it was my _fault_ – like I’d make things _worse_.”

Murmurs started on the tables furthest away. Ian came out of the kitchen, Shirley on his heels still dressed up in her camel coat. She’d come in earlier looking for Ian about Buster or Kathy or something. Paul looked at her and Ian pleadingly, an itch in his throat. The better he came to know his boyfriend, the more he couldn’t bear to see him get like this.

Out of everyone in the restaurant, Shirley was the only one to come closer, while Ian watched, looking both sympathetic and irritated. Ben was still going, “You started a fight you knew I weren’t gonna win, where you could say anything you wanted and I’d be left the one who don’t care about him, who never comes to see him, who gives him ag and breaks his heart –”

“You’ve already broken his heart more than once, you silly boy,” Pam interrupted while Ben paused for breath. “How do you think he felt today, when I told him –”

“ _Nan,_ ” Paul swore at her, taken aback at the look of surprise that crossed her face. She hadn’t worked it out, Paul realised, and he wondered why no one ever did. Ben didn’t mean any of this; not really. You put him in a bind and he would beat you away with any and every negative thought he could find swirling in the back of his head, disguising all vulnerability with plain old spite.

It was horrible, but the worst part in Paul’s eyes was what it did to Ben himself. He heard every single thing people told him back when he was like this and he took it to heart more than anything else you ever said. It was toxic – Phil had the same trait, from what Paul could tell, and the two of them together… In Paul’s experience most people would say things they didn’t mean in a row, but they usually were able to figure out the other side didn’t mean their own outbursts, eventually. You’d apologise and that would be that. His own problem had always been blurting out his true feelings, which only ever meant giving away ammunition – but with Ben it was a whole different adventure.

“I ain’t playing your game, Pam.” He was still on his feet, not shouting though his voice nonetheless carried across the restaurant floor. “I ain’t watching you wrap him round your little finger with me in your other hand, you twisting my words and acting like you know best and making us all believe your _lies_.”

“Ben.” It was Shirley who interrupted his rant, now standing at the end of their table. She had sympathy all over her face, and Paul was certain, suddenly, that there was something else going on that he was in the dark about – yet another facet of Ben Mitchell’s screwed-up head.

It was a moment to say something, but as it was Ben looked at her for half a second and froze. His cheeks were bright red and Paul suddenly noticed how his left hand was shaking visibly now, his fingers not quite tightened into a fist at his side. The lights of Beale’s were bright and in the next half a second Ben was leaving the restaurant and making Paul stand up abruptly so the glare went straight into his eyes.

Paul was wrestling his way past chair legs when Shirley spoke up again, addressing Nan as gossiping chatter started up around them. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” she accused, and Paul couldn’t help but turn back, in case of what he didn’t know. In case his Nan needed defending? Shirley went on, “Messing around with a boy’s head like that.”

“I didn’t mean…” And now that Paul looked at her, he realised Pam had actually been shaken up. He always forgot how threatening most people found the Mitchells. “I wasn’t trying to manipulate anyone.” She looked up, desperate for forgiveness. “I was only trying to protect you, Paul!”

“He didn’t mean it,” Paul promised her, smiling through the panic that was rising in the back of his throat. “He never does. Look –” He glanced at Shirley, hoping she at least would understand that someone needed to be following Ben, _now_. “– we’ll talk later.” Everything’s fine, all right?” he finished, turning away and rushing past the other diners as he realised he’d already been standing there too long.

* * *

_later._

* * *

The first thing Paul did was turn on the lights. “Ben?” he asked again.

The late evening sun was streaming in behind him, but Paul still wasn’t sure he could see a thing. Everything was where it was meant to be: the desk, the pit, the car from that morning. They were all undisturbed.

It was only when he looked a second time that Paul realised that Ben was sitting on the floor against the back wall, one knee up in front of him while he bit on this thumbnail, staring straight ahead. He was breathing heavily, like he’d been running, but he didn’t seem to have noticed the door opening or the lights coming on.

As Paul approached, he looked up, flinching again as though he was surprised to see the other man there. “Paul,” he said, squinting into the light and staring straight through him. “Look; sorry about all that in the restaurant – could you just…

“What was that all about, Ben?” Paul asked him straight, letting his irritation show. There was no point in hiding it and he wasn’t having any of this prevarication. “My nan’s a lot of things, but she’s not a liar. Not like that.”

Ben snorted, and Paul took that as an invitation to sit on the floor in front of his boyfriend, hold his own knee to his chest.

“You know you have to tell me, right?” He paused, holding Ben’s gaze so he got the idea that Paul wasn’t leaving. Ben looked away, some emotion at least now visible. “Otherwise I’ll think you’re trying to get out of our date.” The hum of the fluorescent lights the only sound inside with them; a few birds were chirping outside. “You know, the one you’re going to surprise me with?” He quirked his eyebrows as a question when Ben glanced back. “If you don’t have any ideas, you can just say…”

Ben blinked, then offered the same sarcastic frown he usually did every time Paul fished for reassurance. The fishing was a bad habit, probably, but Paul couldn’t help the rush in his stomach every time it became clear how stupid his doubts were. “How am I gonna break it to you, Paul?” was what Ben said this time, after a sigh. “The only place I could see us was McKlunky’s.”

There was just about room between the workbench and the filing cabinet for Paul to squeeze in next to Ben, so he took that comment as his cue, snickering. The bricks were cold behind his back, even through his jacket. “Well, you’ve missed out on your free dinner now,” he added as he put an arm around Ben’s shoulders, pulling him close for the warmth, obviously. “I imagine that’s me outlived my usefulness.”

Instead of replying, this time, Ben just curled in closer, as always the front of him just a little soft and fleshy against Paul’s side. It was a bit of a surprise, nonetheless. His fingers found the placket of Paul’s date shirt. “Yeah,” he said, like he couldn’t be bothered to argue.

“Yeah?” Paul quoted back at him, squeezing his shoulder. “That’s all you’ve got to say?”

For a while it was, and Ben said nothing. Paul looked up to the ceiling, wishing for strength.

Spontaneously, then, Ben responded to some unspoken conversation they’d apparently been having. “You know what you mean to me, Paul, right?” he murmured, as if he was planning on leaving for Australia or something. “Even when it was just sex; even when I told you to stuff it… In my head we’ve never not been us. I wouldn’t know how to finish with you for real.”

Paul groaned, closing his eyes as he dropped his head right against Ben’s. _Obviously._ “Well, it’d be nice if everyone else knew that,” he said, trying to transfer some sanity from his own short supply. “Yeah? I mean, my nan and granddad only ever see us breaking up and we can’t magic all the good times into other people’s heads.”

Ben’s hand was moving up Paul’s chest while he spoke, as though he was going for his jaw. He gave up around Paul’s shirt collar, though, which was a shame because Paul was beginning to think a snog in Mitchell’s Autos and an early night was exactly what he wanted.

It would be easier if Ben wasn’t so messed up, Paul thought. Easier to find someone else. It would make his nan happy, for definite, if he could find someone else, and it probably would be easier. But it wasn’t as if he’d never had a thing with anyone else that had lasted longer than three months, so how the hell did he know? At least it was always obvious what mood Ben was in.

“Talking of magic,” Ben then said abruptly, putting a slightly lie to that, “I was thinking we could go to Harry Potter World. Or whatever it’s called.” Paul opened his eyes and pulled back to look at him, not sure if he was serious. “You know,” he continued, in a deadpan voice, “for our date.” It was the voice Paul reckoned Ben had two uses for: when he wasn’t being serious and was deadly serious about something else, and then when he _was_ being serious and was worried Paul would laugh at him. Presumably this was the latter? “I was planning we’d go Hoxton or somewhere tonight, then up Northwest in the morning. We still could.” He wasn’t giving anything away, but finished a little more hesitantly, glancing over to the car that was in overnight. “Jay’s got a mate who works in the ticket booth and she reckons if you ain’t fussy about hanging around there’s always a few punters who don’t turn up.”

“You… You asked Jay to help you out?” Paul didn’t know what to say. He didn’t think of himself as a Harry Potter person, and Ben definitely wasn’t. If he’d got them tickets for _Wicked_ , well, that would have made sense, but… That wouldn't have been a surprise, Paul supposed, and he had asked for one.

“I thought it’d be a laugh,” was what Ben said, as though getting his beaten-up, now registered-sex-offender brother to put everything aside to help plan his and Paul’s date was a normal thing to do. Paul was touched. “I never went anywhere like that as a kid. Not after my mum… Anyway.” He looked down, still essentially cuddled at Paul’s side, before rallying, “None of the clubs I know are good enough and I’m sick of Dad – and Sharon…” There was more feeling in his voice now, as though he was over the more difficult part. “I don’t wanna go anywhere we’d be surrounded by people their age.”

 _And their looks,_ Paul thought to himself. All the same, he could certainly take being shown off to a bunch of teenagers. Maybe they’d share a butterbeer. “Sounds hilarious,” he decided in the end, the idea of it all worming quite happily into his head now he was thinking about it. He could just imagine his nan’s face when she found out that this was Ben Mitchell’s idea of a romantic day out. “I always thought you’d look good with a wand.”

Ben blushed, because he was far too easy to play, but he was smiling anyway. “I’m not holding no wand,” he muttered, and Paul supposed he was right. It was a bit of a shame they were taking things slow, because there was a lot of mileage in that particular comment. Still… It was probably for the best considering the morning’s recycling incident.

Distracting himself from Ben’s embarrassed face and the smell of his aftershave and the hair he’d started to dare styling as though he cared, Paul glanced around the garage again. It was easy to feel like he and Ben were great – that they would always be great – but that would never be true if they didn’t start figuring out what these things were that made Ben fly off the handle. Coming out to his dad for the fifth time or whatever it was had clearly been a good start for his mental well-being, but they weren’t out of the woods yet.

“So are you going to tell me why we’re sitting at your work, freezing ourselves solid?” Paul asked straight out, glancing at the screw-up by his side. It was freezing, after all. “I mean, Nan likes to interfere – she’s nosey and she gossips and she wants what’s best for you. But that’s nothing new, so what was it about this time? Her making up that story?” Ben looked away, and it was clear that had been it. “She didn’t mean anything by it…”

“You had your dominoes out on the table,” Ben muttered, even as Paul rubbed his shoulder. The fact was, he couldn’t really head home and have a go at his nan about everything until he knew why it had upset Ben this much. In general the whole saga sounded like a cover-up that had been so blatant it didn’t really count as a lie, not to Paul; it had been more a semi-polite way of saying ‘get lost’. Which, obviously, they’d have words about. “There were three mugs on that table,” Ben continued, talking through his clenched jaw. “Why’d she think I’d believe her? Why’d she have to say… It was like I’d been making you help me when you weren’t up to it, like you didn’t want to see me, like I was hurting you just by trying…”

And then there in the silence they then had three leads, but no answers. Not to mention a new question of why Ben of all people had a problem with communicating indirectly.

Paul sighed. He was going to have to probe, wasn’t he? It wasn’t going to be fun, either, but with any luck it would be helpful in the long run and even if they did break up he had faith he could probably get them back together again by midnight. It could be a challenge. “Well,” he began, pulling back slightly. “If you don’t want to let me in…”

Turning to stare at him, Ben scowled. _3, 2, 1…_ “It’s not about letting you _in_ , Paul. I didn’t like it. If I knew how I was going to react to things I wouldn’t have any reactions, would I?”

Paul shrugged, wondering if he should get a job as a counsellor for manslaughtering gays. Probably better to stick to flowers, for the time being. “Well, what am I supposed to do if you don’t tell me what you’re feeling?” He could only hope Ben’s apparent hatred of manipulation didn’t count when, actually, Paul did believe in what he was saying.

At least it was effective. Just as predicted, Ben was immediately pulling away and clambering to his feet. “It’s not all about you, Paul,” he said, pacing three steps and then turning back.

 _And here we go…_ It wasn’t in Ben Mitchell to unravel without making you hurt for it, but somehow Paul always came back for more. He couldn’t believe Ben hadn’t been doing this all his life, but from the sound of it there had only been Ben’s mum and him, Paul, who didn’t get some sort of twisted version where the insults made more sense than the self-revelations. It was exhausting, but Paul supposed he was addicted to what came out of it: complete trust; complete over-exposure; the feeling that somehow he – good-time, party-boy, don’t-call-me-I’ll-call-you, app-based hook-up merchant Paul Coker – might actually be the person someone wanted to share their life with.

Or maybe it was about getting a glimpse inside this hard, angry person and finding out what had survived – what all the horrors in the world couldn’t kill.

In the end, who cared? Paul rose to his feet to watch this particular meltdown, feeling like a bird on a wire watching a particularly feral tomcat. For some reason the bird enjoyed courting death and yet not getting eaten.

“You don’t understand,” Ben was insisting, harshly, though it was a bit lacklustre against his usual. “You don’t know what it’s like, to be parcelled around from one replacement parent to another, to be told this random’s your dad, being put in a room and made to lump it. No – I mean _you_ …” This ‘you’ could have been anyone for all Ben was looking at him. “What did little Pauly have, I wonder? His grieving nan and granddad to take him in, cuddle him up in blankets and kiss him goodnight? Me – I had Phil Mitchell, back before he was a joke, and I had his psycho, mental, jealous – _girlfriend_.”

The last word seemed to shock Ben into silence, as though he couldn’t believe he’d said it. He looked up from the ground and stared at Paul, red colouring his face.

Paul didn’t follow. Or – he didn’t want to follow. Some creeping suspicion crawled over him, and for a moment he wished he could put this conversation back in its box. “You what?” he asked, suddenly urgent. “What psycho? D’you mean Shirley?” He really didn’t have a clear history on Phil and his partners over the years.

“No, not Shirl,” Ben spat. He screwed his mouth up, swiped his hand over his face like he was daring himself to speak some evil. Paul was frozen. _All the horrors in the world…_ he thought “ _Stella._ ” Ben then sneered, before repeating the name as though it was stuck in his throat. “Stella – Crawford.”

“Who’s Stella Crawford?” Paul asked, his hands curling up behind him as he felt his heart beat in his chest.

Ben’s face, of course, was a picture of outrage and hate and violence. It was bubbling up out of him like it always did, from nowhere. _Or, what? Hell. From here?_ “Who is she?” he was quoting back incredulously, laughing as though Paul had told a joke. As if he and everyone in the world should already know. “Who is she?”

But then, god help him, Ben started crying. Paul had tears in his own eyes seconds later, because he couldn’t bear to see anyone cry, let alone Ben, who always seemed to cry backwards rather than forwards, with the tears welling up and then running to hide in the back of his head, up his nose while he laughed.

“Oh, Ben,” Paul said as he rushed over. “I’m sorry, mate; I’m so sorry.” Like too many times before Ben’s body was completely unyielding, holding itself together for as long as it took to realise that Paul wasn’t a threat. God, Paul felt awful; it took so long. What the hell had happened?

* * *

"And the joke is that at the end of the day she was right: I destroy everyone I love.”

Paul closed his eyes. He’d heard the whole story now. The result? He was in mourning for a boy he’d never met.

They’d taken a break halfway through the conversation, so they weren’t in the Arches anymore. Instead, they were sitting on the bench near The Albert, a bottle of wine between them that they’d snuck out from inside. Paul was holding it to his chest while he listened to Ben pull himself apart.

_Oh god, I’m sorry, mini Ben._

“Dad started drinking after… Everything.” Paul could relate. “And he weren’t ever the same.” _No._ Ben snorted, continuing: “The things I did to him, though? How could he be? And Louise. The things I did to – to people around me. To Hev. Me and Jay, we’re good now, but I can’t never take that night back from him. And Abi? We were mates since… It’s mad, the things I drove her to. And now you. Your nan’s probably right.”

“You were a _child_ ,” Paul said, not sure whether he was answering Ben or expressing his own circling thoughts. He opened his eyes long enough to slug some more wine, before deciding he wasn’t strong enough for all this and slumped over to rest his head on Ben’s leg. He held out the wine and looked up at his boyfriend against the murky London sky.

Ben didn’t seem to know what to do with him, hesitating before he took hold of the bottle and let Paul get hold of his other hand.

“You don’t hold children responsible for things like that,” Paul said, wondering if this lesson had ever gone in. “And not for the fallout neither.” He tightened a fist around Ben’s thumb, substituting it for the neck of the wine bottle against his chest. “With Hev… I’ve seen you violent, but you don’t go near people no more – not when you’re like that. The Abi thing…” Paul shrugged, feeling tipsy. “Which of you was crueller to the other? I’ve got a feeling one day I’ll talk to Johnny Carter and there’ll be a story about how you and her got together.”

Ben groaned above him – irritated but at least sounding like himself again. “Will you leave Johnny Carter out of this? I don’t need him getting ideas about what a catch you are.”

“Aha,” Paul observed, and rather happy about it, “so you do want me, then?”

Ben rolled his eyes and Paul couldn’t help giggling, though obviously the sound was much manlier than the average giggle. The sky above them was a deep orange-grey and it was a good sky to have thoughts under, not that Paul could make too much sense of his.

Neither of them said anything for a little while, just resting in the quiet. Paul allowed himself a little fantasy that they were in New York or somewhere else no one could touch them. Bodrum, maybe, though his toes wouldn’t have been as cold in Bodrum. It would be nice to go away somewhere – sticking around didn’t seem all that necessary now everyone knew they were together.

It was weird, Paul thought, that all of this stuff was still going to be true tomorrow morning – and the day after that. And the day after that. Ben had known it for years, of course, but Paul wasn’t sure he could comprehend it. Torturing a child? Telling him it was his fault that bad things happened? It made Paul feel sick.

“Why d’you think Jay pled guilty?” Ben eventually asked, apparently keen to change the subject entirely.

Paul went with it, shuffling so the wooden bench arm dug into a different part of his ankle; he bounced his head on Ben’s thigh. “Dunno; hasn’t he said? I assumed he thought the trial would take forever and they’d find a way to catch him out, make things worse. It comes down to he-said-she-said, dunnit?”

“Yeah…” Ben drawled. “Though it’s not clear they’ve even got the cow saying he knew how old she was – only her mum. Nah; Jay don’t want to be inside for this, but otherwise he don’t want _Linzi_ to be put on the stand. Reckons she’s just a kid and don’t deserve it – people raking over her pictures and that.”

Paul tried not to pause, still playing with Ben’s hand. The minefield of his boyfriend’s brain was starting to make a little bit more sense. “D’you think she does, then? Deserve it?”

“I dunno,” Ben admitted, shrugging. Paul rolled his head so their eyes met, and Ben looked down as if to say, _Yeah, yeah._ “I can’t not blame her for what happened. Yeah, all right, Jay told me he picked her up in the caff, drinking milkshakes, and maybe it’s weird he never had any idea what she did during the day. But I just assumed she worked in a shop. Maybe did Media Studies or something at uni. She had that vibe, you know: didn’t drink much; nervy about sex. Made sense she was into books.”

“And you decided this based on the _many_ intellectual conversations you had with her?”

Ben shook his head. “I just don’t see her as this _child_ thing people are talking about. Louise neither – not really. Me at fourteen? I was messed up in the head, but I was still me.”

The night was quieter now, and Paul’s heart was sore, but he somehow still found it in himself to answer. “D’you never think that’s not something they took from you, your mum and her and Phil? I mean, they took something, right, otherwise why are things the way they are?” That was how Paul saw it anyway. “Maybe it wasn’t just _your_ childhood; it was your whole sense of it as a… A thing in the world.”

“Mm,” Ben didn’t reply, knocking back a slug of wine and slouching into the bench. “That’s bleak, Paul,” he said, smiling for some reason after the words came out.

Paul shrugged, not pushing it. “You’re the optimist.”

Ben snorted. “Yeah,” he said, not giving anything away as he tightened his hand in Paul’s. A late train trundled out of Walford East. “I suppose I am.”

.


End file.
